


My friend is not a Superhero

by terunyan



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Superman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-16 04:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7253302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terunyan/pseuds/terunyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Damian Wayne can't get over his friends' questionable life choices.</p><p>(WARNING: I'm probably not gonna continue that, I'm sorry, everyone.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything for years, but DC comics made me do this.  
> The boys are around 16-17 years old in this one. I'm probably going to continue writing little fics with episodes from their relationship.  
> Thank you for your kudos!

It never occurred to Damian Wayne, that someone as gifted as the son of Superman could choose a life of a civilian. His own life was a mixture of crime-fighting, night patrols, jaw-breaking, knocking out and knocking down Gotham’s filthiest alongside his dad. Being a vigilante (and an assassin before that) was practically all he knew – and he was damn good at it, although he wasn’t taking after his father in his line of work. Jon Kent didn’t seem to take after his father, too, but in a more explicit way of avoiding to use his superpowers at all.

The absurdity of this drove Damian nuts. He tried to convince himself that was due to his friends’ extravagantly foolish life choices, but certainly not to his own lack of civilian experience. Hell, their friendship might have been Damian’s only mundane relationship up to this point. Except maybe Alfred, but then again, Alfred was also a superhero in his own way, and everyone could confirm that without any doubt.

That being said, he still had to figure out a proper reaction strategy, whenever he received a new photo or video of Jon from his yet another volunteer trip to some overseas country.

Damian’s phone blinked, when he was changing in a Batcave locker. The sun was beginning to rise, and they’ve just got home from an exhausting patrol, and honestly, Damian wasn’t the one to get tired easily, but the only thing he wanted now was a cold shower and a good twelve hour sleep. Still, he remembered, that  it was morning half the world away in the deserts of Namibia, so Jon was probably out working and had a new sentiment to share.

He opened his Snapchat to find an incoming video from Jon.

“Hey, Damian!” A familiar voice was muffled by the wind noise, and a familiar face was hardly recognizable at first due to the lack of focus. “Check this out! Do you like my new ride?”

The camera shifted downwards to show, that Jon was riding an elephant’s back, laughing and shaking the phone all the way. _What a dork,_ Damian thought, still, he couldn’t help but chuckle at this purely Jungle Book type of scene.

Jon had his own idea of helping the world, which involved flying all over the globe and aiding those in need. On second thought, his way wasn’t so different from usual superhero duties, and let’s face it, there were enough crime fighters already, but taking action in some godforsaken places was much less common.

He nearly forgot how genuine Jon could be, when it came down to the most childish of things, and he had to admit he sort of missed being around this kind of person. Though he was quite sure that riding elephants wasn’t the job Jon was supposed to do there in the first place.

“Scaring the poor creatures with your superpowers? I thought you were going for a conservation program, dweeb,” he wrote, as he was not a fan of sending countdown photos (and this ridiculous app in the first place).

He quickly took off the rest of the costume, feeling a few bruises here and there, when the phone blinked again. Damian hated notifications, so blinking was the only thing his nervous system could bear without giving in to the thought of escaping to a lone house somewhere in Himalayas, where no living soul could reach him.

Now there was a picture with Jon’s satisfied face against the elephant, who was hugging him with its trunk.

“You’re just jealous of how they adore me,” the caption said, and then the message followed. “Besides, a little exercise in flying never hurts”.

Damian rolled his eyes. Now Jon was up to flying – not when he had a city to save, but when he had a herd of big-ass elephants to babysit. Jon’s eyes were clearly glowing with joy, his blue eyes standing out in contrast to his tanned skin, and the sheer sight of this made Damian’s face twitch in an inexplicable way. The picture didn’t have a timer, and his brood had nearly made him forget about the painful numbness of his weary limbs and upcoming headache.

“Hey, what you up to?” The message came in, and Damian started tapping the answer quickly.

“It’s 4 AM in Gotham and the patrol is just grinding me down.” He was ready to put the phone down and toddle to the shower at last, when the impatient blinking was back again.

“HEEEY HOLD UP!” Damian wasn’t sure his life has prepared him for messages in all caps at this particular moment, but…

Hell, Namibia. And his friend, as cranky as he was. He had no choice but to try and hold out a little bit longer. He would get his load of sleep eventually, even if it was meant to happen on the cold locker floor, brought out by the complete silence of the Cave.

The next message came. Damian’s brow went up in annoyance.

“Give me one pic to prove your face isn’t beaten up into a pudding by some shitty villains, so I don’t freak out and let you go with peace,” and it got even more annoying by the time he has finished reading – though there was nothing new.

Damian sighed and stretched his arm. He put his middle finger right between his eyes to make a perfect selfie for some nerd, who was thousands of miles away, and whom he still considered his more or less normal friend. His shoulders and collarbones were visible in the dim light of the locker, and that made him satisfied, because his muscles have always made a statement of their own. He even managed a grin. Exhaustion wouldn’t take his class away, after all.

“Shitty villains ain’t got nothing on me,” he wrote in the caption and sent it away. He never put the timer, because he still considered the whole idea dumb and didn’t want to deprive other people of a rare opportunity to gaze at his eloquent face.

It seemed like an eternity, until he finally got his answer, which turned out to be just a couple of emojis. One was an excited smiley face, that fit Jon’s manners too perfectly, and the other one was that surprised cat with paws on its cheeks.

“Man, I miss you,” the message followed shortly after.

Damian rested his head on the palm of his hand, looking at the screen. It’s been a month since Jon left to volunteer for that ridiculous elephant conservation program, and he wasn’t planning to return any time soon. It wasn’t his first journey, he’s been overseas twice already this year, helping on various programs here and there. His returns had been brief and bitty: he usually managed to spend a couple of days in Gotham, before heading out to Metropolis, and after Metropolis there was always Smallville, then “uncle Flash” in Central City, and all this gave a clear evidence, that the guy simply had a wild hair up his ass and was biologically unable to sit still.

Damian was close to admitting that he missed the guy, too, but he kept the thought somewhere in the back of his head, and certainly wasn’t going to verbalize it to anyone’s face.

“You could fly back here easily, if you want some exercise,” was his answer.

Then came another picture. It was Jon waving his hand at the elephant, who was waving back with his trunk.

“Nah, I’m gonna ride an elephant to your doorstep, you wait,” Damian read across the picture.

“And then show me a whole new world?”

This impulse compromised Damian so much, that he could end up being mocked for several days straight. But the guy was miles away, making Damian pretty much invincible.

“A NEW FANTASTIC POINT OF VIEW,” of course, Jon was the one to know Disney lyrics by heart. _Too predictable._ “OMG you going all Disney at me? No way!”

Now that’s where Damian realized he’s had enough for tonight.

“I’m going to bed”, he wrote and wanted to put the phone down, but he had to add “Dork” to make his statement final.

“Ily, too” and another smiley face was quick to follow.

Damian groaned and shut the screen down.

His head was a mess he had no intention figuring out.

A cold shower was still his priority for tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first encounter was a weird one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments and kudos! Hopefully, I will continue writing these series, it is so much fun. This chapter turned out to be longer and it has both Jon's and Damien's POV and some additional characters.

Their first conversation wasn’t face-to-face either, and it was far from those formal introductions, that generally happen among superheroes and their affiliates. Damian remembers it very well: it was a steadily hot summer in Gotham, several years ago, and that particular night Damian was staying in the Cave instead of patrolling the streets with his father. Getting benched wasn’t such a rare occasion for any Robin, but this time didn’t give much room for complaining, because somehow a week before Damian managed to break his leg. The fracture was really nasty - it was an open one and would probably take weeks to heal, and this fact made Damian both enraged and upset. Got him feeling useless.

So he spent the night sitting in a chair in front of numerous screens, determined to help anyway. The cast on his leg took too much space and felt unfamiliar and irritating, and he tried not to think about how _badly_ he wanted to scratch his leg under it. Instead, he focused on the monitor, providing guidance when necessary, but as luck would have it, this night’s patrol was relatively dull and uninteresting.

Damian adjusted the earphones and put his face in the palms of his hands. Well, at least he wasn’t melting in the heat outside – the Cave kept the temperature fairly cool and felt like a blissful desert oasis.

“A quiet night, Master Damian?” Alfred’s figure appeared next to him out of nowhere.

“Yeah,” he answered and turned around in a swivel chair.

Alfred was holding a tray with a glass of milk and a plateful of chocolate chip cookies in his hands. Damian rolled his eyes, because he was treated like a child _yet again_ (which he, at the ripe age of 12, most certainly was _not_ ), but didn’t say anything, as the butler carefully put the tray on the table beside him. That’s just something that Alfred would always do on such long nights, when the only sign of life in the Cave was a bright light, coming from the control station. To his satisfaction, the contents of the tray would have always been gone by the end of the night.

Boredom got Damian soon enough, and he even started to think about opening YouTube or Spotify just to play something in the background to keep him awake. Usually he didn’t have a problem with his focusing, but tonight Batman wasn’t willing to communicate, and the streets fell asleep so easily, as if even villains didn’t want to work in such extreme heat. And _Damn it_ , he thought, his leg was itching again, so he had to slap his right hand a few times, when it tried to instinctively get under the cast.

His body was clearly getting out of control. In order to keep his hands and mind occupied, he decided to take a sip of milk and have a quick bite. The cookies were delicious as usual, Damian admitted – there had to be some magic inside them, that magnetized all of the Robins regardless of age. Dick, he recalled, could probably eat a dozen of them without blinking an eye.

Damian’s own eyes had to open wide, though, when the monitors suddenly started to gleam, and he heard a loud noise inside his earphones. He quickly put the glass down and looked at the main screen – the quality suddenly became so bad, it was impossible to recognize anything. The cameras were also twitching wildly, as if something was interrupting the signal. _Or is it someone?_

The earphones were going all crazy, so Damian had to pull them down, before quickly opening the control panel, trying to figure out, what was going on. The security system couldn’t identify the problem. Several lines of code later, Damian understood, that it wasn’t a virus, and that the files were all safe and untouched, but the screens were still twitching like a kaleidoscope.

“Batman? Batman, can you hear me?” he shouted into the mic, but the only sound in his earphones was the same unbearable noise.

“Alfred!” he called out next, eyeing the screen anxiously.

Nothing much happened. The Batcave hard drives remained secure. But the twitching clearly indicated that there was a security breach of unknown purpose. Worst of all, it appeared that Damian couldn’t connect to anyone in the family, or even the League, to inform them of this unexpected attack. Could it be connected with tonight’s patrol? The thoughts of Batman left in uncertain condition were driving Damian mad, as he pushed countless buttons vigorously in his attempts to stabilize the system.

“What is the matter, Master Damian?” the butler’s question seemed to be answered, as he looked at the screen, his eyes widening in disturbance.

Damian clenched his teeth and breathed out heavily. Now he was getting some action for the night.

“We’re being hacked, Alfred,” he said, rage building up inside him. “Call Drake, we’ve got an ass to kick.”

***

 

Jon had been planning this for days, and when the proper night finally came, he could barely hide his excitement from his mother during dinner. Lois was a smart woman, and surely she had noticed, but didn’t pay much attention to Jon’s weird smiles and his unusual appetite towards the broccoli quiche. She gave him a curious look, when he finished his plate off too quickly.

“Got the stomach of a speedster, huh?” she asked, smiling.

Jon gave her a nod and a smile with only a slight hint of conspiracy.

“Couldn’t help myself, it was just so good.”

“I see,” she answered and returned to scrolling the news feed at her tablet.

Jon didn’t wait another moment to stand up, quickly taking his plate to the kitchen sink.

“Thanks, mom,” he said, making his way up the stairs. He only heard distant “You’re welcome” before closing the door behind him.

This was it. Finally, the night was perfect for the occasion. He knew that mother had a fair share of work to do, with both her new book and the blog requiring a lot of attention due to the recent Justice League missions. His father wasn’t keeping his distance from the disasters in the world anymore, so his presence has been required by the League and the city of Metropolis more and more often. This whole superhero thing has thrilled Jon a lot, and he was immensely proud of his dad being a leading member of the world’s strongest unity, sworn to protect the humanity from all kinds of catastrophes.

There was one question that was bothering Jon ever since he discovered his father’s secret. When was Superman going to introduce him to all of his superhero friends?

Whenever Jon asked his father this question, the response remained more or less the same:

“When the time is right.”

_Well, duh._ That didn’t make much sense to Jon, who was half-human and half-kryptonian and definitely going to follow in the footsteps of his father one day. So instead of settling for less, he decided to take the matter into his own hands and drop various signs of his burning desire to meet the whole Justice League. The Wonder Woman t-shirt, that he was purposely wearing at home, had only been one among many.

After weeks without any results, one night he found himself in front of the computer, sipping hot chocolate out of the Green Lantern mug and searching for ways to hack into the Justice League control station. His objective was far from attainable, but he believed that sooner or later he would succeed using the infinite resources of Google and his willpower with a little help of afternight coffee. 

 Eventually, when he snatched one of his father’s comm-links, he thought he finally had his key to accessing the transmission link. But it took a lot more effort to decode the channel, when his father thought he had lost the messenger and shut it down within less than a day. Jon wasn’t a hacker, after all, especially not the kind that is suitable enough to break into the most sophisticated and heavily guarded headquarters in the world.

His struggles were only partially successful: he managed to tune in some sort of channel, but he had no idea how to make it further, or whether it was even the channel he was looking for. At this point Jon realized that he didn’t have a proper plan as well, like what was he going to do? Was he going to say anything? How was he going to introduce himself then? Who was he going to talk to? These questions popped up one after another and they were holding Jon back from actually trying his tool out.

Until one day he saw them. He saw Wonder Woman descending from the sky and standing next to his father, and in the split second the Flash appeared between them, and it was all so casual and magnificent at the same time. Jon glared at them from behind his curtains, and he was greatly upset, when they took off after only a minute or two. If he had been waiting for a sign before, than that was it. He promised himself to finally try it out the next time his father was going to be away on a League’s mission.

Jon checked his surroundings once again. Lois was still in the kitchen downstairs, too involved in her reading, and she was probably going to move to her study pretty soon, so the coast was clear anyway. He had several hours before his dad’s return. His eyes were gleaming with excitement, when he plugged the comm-link in and opened the program. He checked his network once again to ensure it was as secure as possible, because there was still a chance of the control panel having some sort of automatic security system that could blackout their entire house in a matter of seconds. Despite all that, Jon remained determined, partly because he was sure there was nothing wrong in his actions, and partly because it was too late to turn back, when he’d come so far.

So he moved closer to his desk, pulling his knees up to the chest, and started writing the code. He was suddenly feeling so proud of himself for actually figuring it out, though he still didn’t know, what he was going to say, if everything worked out.

_‘Hi, I’m Jon,’_ would be a good start, he thought. “I’m your co-workers son. How’s the night going?” he mumbled to himself in amusement.

When the typing was over, he grabbed a can of cola and opened it with a loud puff. Yep, all these lines looked kind of impressive. He didn’t hesitate to try them out anymore, but he did take a moment just to look at them and appreciate the result of his hard work.

“Well, two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by,” he was humming quietly, when he pressed Enter and leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands behind the head. _It’s showtime_.

At first it went well – all he had to do was slowly adjust the modulating frequency, until he got the best signal. But after about 30 seconds his ears were stunned with a dreadful noise that made him yelp and pull the earphones away from his ears immediately.

“What the hell?” but according to the program, the connection wasn’t lost – quite the opposite, in fact, he gained the first contact. The noise was still confusing – it had appeared out of nowhere and made Jon rapidly go through the sound settings. He found nothing there. Could it be the League’s security system? He wondered whether his intrusion was in any way evident on the other end.

A minute passed, then two, and then three, and the noise was still there. That seemed enough for Jon to give up already, until it became quiet for a moment. The noise returned briefly, interrupting the silence every five seconds or so. Jon was looking at the screen with his eyes wide open, wondering, which horror film this scene reminded him of.

He wasn’t sure. So he waited.

***

 

Damian was staring at the screen, waiting, too. The noise was gone after a line of short interruptions, while a row of monitors were still twitching. He hated to admit that he had slightly overestimated his computing skills, losing to Drake, obviously. But Drake hasn’t answered the call yet – most likely, he was away on Teen Titans mission God knows where and couldn’t connect to the Batcave control panel. Damian’s irritation changed to anger. He tried to jump on his feet impulsively, but his broken leg had stopped him from doing that, so instead of angrily hammering the panel with his fists he quickly managed to lean on it in order not to collapse on the floor.

His raging thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected voice, coming from his earphones.

“Um, hi,” the muffled voice made his whole body tense up. “Is anybody out there?”

He cast a quick glance at Alfred, whose face was as startled, as his own. After only a few seconds the voice spoke again.

“I knew this dumb thing wouldn’t work… Damn it.”

This time, Damian was quick to snap out of it and demonstrate his anger and hostility without hesitation.

“Who the hell are you?” he yelled, redirecting the sound from his earphones to the speakers. “You think it’s some kind of joke? What are you, stupid, suicidal or both?”

The person on the other end seemed stunned, which was the exact effect Damian was going for. His only weak spot was his inability to kick this guy out of the system immediately, and he simply had to wait for either Batman or Red Robin to tune in and figure something out. That meant he needed to keep the intruder talking.

Or teach him a lesson and make the bastard shit himself and forget the art of speech for the rest of his miserable life.

What a hard choice.

First Damian heard a gasp, then a hesitant voice followed.

“Oh, shoot, are you a kid?”

Damian would have jumped up from his chair (and failed) again, if it wasn’t for Alfred’s palm that had firmly pressed him back down in advance.

“Say that again and I’ll track you down and crash your skull with my bare hands!” Damian shouted so angrily that his voice even sounded a little older.

“Stay calm, Master Damian,” unlike his own, Alfred’s voice had sounded relatively calm, as if he wasn’t sensing the danger coming from the hacker anymore.

In fact, during a brief pause, when Damian was putting the pieces together in his mind, son of Batman came to the conclusion that the voice on the other side belonged to a child, probably of about the same age as him. This discovery didn’t ease the burden of the Cave system being hacked during _his_ watch at all.

“Alright, dude, I’m sorry,” _Dude?_ The familiarity of this conversation was devastating, in addition to a poor self-preservation instinct of his interlocutor. If there wasn’t any way to disconnect him, at least there had to be a way to track him down. If it had any use at all.

“Alfred, can we track him down?” he asked, noticing, that the butler had already occupied his position at the computer.

“But, seriously, are they keeping kids in the League now?” the voice spoke again before Damian got any answer from Alfred, sounding more relieved, and Damian most certainly did not like where this was going. “’Cause, like, _that_ would be totally unfair of my dad…”

Damian could barely understand what he was babbling about. He couldn’t believe he was having such a ridiculous conversation in the middle of the night with an anonymous kid, who somehow succeeded to break into possibly the most secure communication network in the world.

And wait, he was talking about the Justice League? _Does that mean he is trying to track some of the members?_

At this moment it dawned at him: he fucked up. So bad, that it could get him benched for fucking eternity. Damian had no other way then to take hold of the situation to make sure Batman never found out about it.

Meanwhile, the annoying kid carried on talking.

“So, what does the League HQ look like?” this was too much for him.

“Is anybody around? Or are they all gone? Dad’s been bone-tired night after night lately.” Dad? What dad? Did he think it was a youth help hotline?

“Hey, are you someone’s son, too?” Damian could swear this was the first person who talked fast enough to leave him speechless and confused, including the Flash.

“Any chance I could meet Wonder Woman? Man, that’d be the best day ever,” Damian slowly turned to Alfred only to find that the butler looked rather amused at this whole picture. Damian lifted his hands in dismay, while the boy continued.

“Oh my god,” the boy said, making a thrilled gasp. “Are you _her_ son?”

Damian’s stupor had its limits. His fury, on the contrary, didn’t.

“Shut up already!” Damian yelled as willfully as he could. “Now listen, you blockheaded…”

“It’s Jon,” the boy’s disregard remained evident and infuriating.

“Screw you, Jon!”

“Language!” Alfred’s tone was unexpectedly harsh and so full of a disapproval it threw Damian off a little.

Damian was one move away from crushing the mic with his hand.

“You have five seconds to get the hell out of our system,” he tried to keep his voice calm, but ice-cold and threatening. “Or you’ll have to answer to Batman and Robin. And it won’t be pleasant.”

“Smallville, sir,” Alfred stated from the side.

“What?” Damian scowled at him.

“The signal is coming from Smallville,” Alfred repeated, tapping at the keyboard. “I’ll be able to specify the location in about a minute.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” a desperate chatter had lashed out from the speaker. “Why do you need to track me? I haven’t done any harm!”

“Five seconds,” Damian demanded.

“Wait, what?” Damian couldn’t keep up with the tone of the intruder’s voice that was now less nervous and back to excited again. “Batman and Robin? That means…”

“Four,” he made sure his own voice sounded deadly.

“You’re Robin, right?”

Damian added ignorance to the ongoing list of things he found particularly irritating in the wannabe-hacker boy.

“That is _so_ awe-”

As luck would have it, the connection was lost before he could even count to three.

Damian threw himself back in the chair. Alfred gave him a puzzled look and glanced back at the screen. It wasn’t twitching anymore and the monitors were back to normal. It looked as if nothing had happened at all. After about half a minute of silence Damian was the first to speak up.

“Unbelievable.”

“Wow, you suck at making friends,” another voice came through the speaker – a familiar one this time, when the Red Robin icon popped up on the screen.

“An invaluable comment, Drake,” Damian was still feeling irritated, but mostly just tired. “Where the hell have _you_ been?”

“Mission in Chicago. In fact, I’m at the top of the Aon Center now,” Damian could actually hear the wind blowing into Red Robin’s comm-link.

“Whatever,” he snapped. “You’re late.”

“Wrong. I’ve heard pretty much everything.”

“Then why didn’t you kick him out?!” he forgot how obnoxious his family could be once in a while.

“Didn’t want to miss the show,” Tim replied, chuckling. “So, who’s this Jon?”

“Do I look like I know him?” Damian doubted that he could handle one more nagging conversation for a single night. And that freaking itch under the cast was driving him crazy again.

“And you call yourself a son of the world’s greatest detective?” Tim, who was clearly amused, forged a surprise. “Good luck, then. Red Robin out.”

If not for Alfred, Damian would have flipped Red Robin, too. Hopefully, that’d be all for the night.

“Master Damian?”

“Yes, Alfred,” Damian rolled his chair closer to the butler.

“I have found the location of the caller. Do you wish to see it?”

Damian mused about it for a moment. A caller from Smallville of about his age, who was able to break into the Cave, searching for members of the Justice League? _This can’t be a stupid coincidence._

He heard the sound of engine and wheels coming from behind.

“No,” he answered at last. “Let’s hear what father has to say about this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Next chapter will take a little more time, because tomorrow I'm getting my bachelor's degree, and I'm going away on holiday right after that. But stay tuned! =)


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